Laughing Matters: Comic Tradition in India

This question, so solemnly posed by the young Buddha, first led Lee Siegel to examine the hitherto unexplored realm of Indian comedy. Laughing Matters is Siegel's account of two intersecting journeys: a search for comic traditions created and preserved in Sanskrit literature and a journey through modern India in quest of a laughter that persists across time and culture.

Hearing a boisterous and bawdy voice from India's past, Siegel has provided original and highly entertaining translations of Sanskrit literature that reveal a sparkling sensibility embedded in the texts. These translations are integrated with a detailed analysis of the types and structures of India's mirth. Siegel develops an original theory of comedy and laughter, applying it to reveal the humor in the ancient works. Defining sacred and profane comedy - laughter at others and laughter at oneself-which are roughly parallel to the Wester traditions of satire and humor. He examines these categories in all of their forms and functions: satires of manners, social satire, and religious satire; and human and divine comedy. Siegel concludes by presenting his perceptions of humor in modern India as seen through cartoons, movies, books; and social gatherings.

Laughing Matters is both a serious and a hilarious study of the Indian comic sense of life-a vision formed in the convergence of the bitter insight of satire and the sweet outlook of humor. Past and present, the contextual and the universal, scholarship and the picaresque, are all interwoven in this original treatise on the aesthetics of comedy and the psychology of laughter.

Review(s)

"How can anyone laugh who knows of old age, disease, and death?"-Buddhacarita

"Mark Twain said that man was the only animal that blushes-or needs to. Man is also the only animal that laughs-or needs to. Laughing matters.

".....Unlike most books on humor, this one makes us laugh-jokes, satires, wicked cartoons by India's best cartoonists like Abu Mario and Laxman, free translations in Dr. Seuss-like rhymes, and Sanskrit names translated as Madam Toothy...or Mis Lovebouquet... palindromes...old Indian philosophic distinctions about satire (laughter about others) and humor (laughter about others) and humor (laughter about one-self), and delightful make-believe conversations with many Indians whom the author meets between chapters...Lee Siegel has read practically everything that one can find on humor in general, looked for (and found) comedy in Sanskrit (neither Western nor Indian scholars ever thought that possible), and truly changes our sense of what's Indian about these centuries of laughter that seems to have gone unheard by the outside world, It is an important book, a serious inquiry, and a book that also plays it for laughs.

"....The author takes risks and is not afraid of getting high on his subject. When he forgets his academic self, which fortunately he often does, Lee Siegel has style. He tells memorable stories of every shade and offers insights into Indian culture and Indian civilization. The book also has an excellent bibliographic essay, an astonishing list of Indian works of humor, and an index that invites browsing for items like Obesity, Husband (henpecke), Laughter at the gods.

"It is a rare book that is good and solid but also wings it now and then, a serious book that also laughs at itself. Groucho Marx once reviewed a funny book. He said, 'Ever since I picked up this book, I've been roaring with laughter. I hope to read it some day'. When you pick up Lee Siegel's book, you'll both read it and laugh aloud". - A.K. Ramanujan, The University of Chicago, Chicago South Asia Newsletter-April 1988.

About the Author(s)

Lee Siegel is professor of religion at the University of Hawaii. He is the author of Vivisections, Sacred and profane Love in Indian Traditions, and Fires of Love Waters of Peace.